


And The World Spins Madly On

by nine_minutes



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancer Arc (X-Files), Comfort, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26426146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nine_minutes/pseuds/nine_minutes
Summary: There are two things worse than dying, Mulder. The first is the fate of knowing you're going to die. The second is when everybody around you knows it, too.
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	And The World Spins Madly On

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this as a private therapy to deal with some baggage after my own experience with a loved one's cancer, and decided to share it. Title comes from "World Spins Madly On" by The Weepies, a song that was a constant in that time and felt right for this. This is my first published work in over a decade - thanks for reading.

There are two things worse than dying, Mulder. The first is the fate of knowing you're going to die. The second is when everybody around you knows it, too.

We both know the stages of grief. They're practically a daily meditation in our line of work, aren't they? It could be on behalf of a victim, or a victim's loved ones - or it could be yet another first-hand trauma in the long line of personal tragedies that seem to follow us, despite our best intentions. Grief is always there, like a specter. Like a silent passenger, or an old friend. 

First there's the disbelief: a denial, a refusal to accept the neat, clinical facts laid out in hushed tones. Oh, those hushed tones. They rarely have their intended effect, and they never stop, even as cheeks are hollowed and bones are prodding and will is weakening. _Cancer_. They speak its name as if saying it too loud will grant it power, but it's already here, rooted and seeping, at once a part of me and the very thing that will shepherd me away, piece by piece. To confront this reality is to recognize the truth, and the cruelest irony of all has been watching you turn away from that which you've so fiercely fought and searched for, because it's in me. 

Next comes the anger. It burned in me with what energy I had left as I pushed through those first weeks _in spite_ of the truth. The anger is in the sheer will to live, the defiance of the stacked odds. It's the shame of the stares as blood drips from my nose in a meeting, a sudden and sharp reminder of the normalcy I could no longer afford. It's pretending to not hear the soft crack in your voice when you say my name and hand me another tissue, the ones that you don't mention but have started keeping in your breast pocket just for me. It's being forced to watch myself slipping quietly away while my blood boiled and my mind howled that it was not yet my time, and this was not my fate. 

I have spent my career carefully curating and fighting for my independence, my confidence, and my foothold in a world dominated by men and their prejudices; the loss, not just of those qualities but also the will with which to pursue them again, was devastating in a way that even now is difficult to describe. It made me so angry, so bitter - the total and absolute unfairness of the diagnosis, and the following events that unfolded for both of us. That's something we've become acutely conscious of on our journey, though, isn't it? Life is rarely fair; death is often swift and impartial, ending the sentence in a question mark instead of a period, if the sentence ends at all. Sometimes, it simply stops - a thought, a feeling, a moment, a confession - suspended in time, left unspoken forever. And how could that ever be fair?

Bargaining is the replacement for the anger that has been burned down to a smolder, transforming into a desperate grasp for anything resembling logic or reason. Though I found myself with nothing to give and no expectations to receive, I know that you will find this stage tempting. The shadows will come to you again as they have already, cloaked in smoke, offering you a miracle in exchange for your soul - miracles that amount to the endangerment of your own life and a vial of useless water. They will take from you, and in return, provide you with nothing but more questions. The truth cannot be traded or bought, especially now. Please, promise me that you won't go chasing hope on the whispers and assurances of phantoms. There is nothing there for either of us except more darkness. 

The final stage is the hardest. The depression will numb you and harden you all at once. Sometimes it will feel like your insides are screaming for release, begging for one moment's respite from your mind's images and sounds of me, from when I wasn't _me_ anymore, at the end. Other times, it will feel like nothing at all - like absolute desolation gripping you, taking you away from your mind and body until you can't move, or even want to. You will feel like a single rowboat adrift on a pond with no oars and one dwindling tether threatening to snap. 

And that's okay. 

We feel loss acutely, we mourn, because we have lost something that we have loved, and in doing so have lost a piece of ourselves. We have lost a future, still to be written - and though the future is uncertain and unpredictable, it's the loss of possibility that we grieve the most. It's the loss of time. And we'll always - always - want more time. 

Grieve for these things, but do not grieve for us. We are the same as we have ever been. Every trek in the forest, every roadside diner, every laugh in the Oregon rain - we are still there, young and alive in time and in mind. I will be gone from your sight, but I don't have to be gone from your spirit. Our true legacies are the memories, the imprints, that we leave on others with our actions and words; don't allow mine to be a scar on your beautiful mind. When you think of me, smile and laugh like you did back then, without the gravity of tragedy attached. When you say my name, don't let it come softly with the weight of sadness and loss. We are still as we always were. When you come to recognize me in this way, when you have weathered the storm, it will be with acceptance.

Promise me you'll do these things, and promise me that you will never give up on the truth. Your answers, your justice, your life, are still out there. And we will always be there, together. 


End file.
